Dawn Til Twilight
by Riku54-Vincent's Demon
Summary: Riku has forgotten parts of his past. He wants to remember it, but only because Tifa and Cloud are keeping something from him, but when he discovers the truth, can he handle it? And what of his friend Sora? Had Sora known all along? The darkness is callin
1. Chapter 1

**Dawn Til Twilight Prologue**

_Prologue_

_A small boy huddled in the corner of his room, closing his green-blue eyes. He could hear the screams of pain just outside his door. He felt his headache grow worse as he wondered what was happening. Why had his father told him to stay in his room and not come out until he told him too? _

_Fear crept into his heart and he began to sob. His cries were muffled by his hands, but he cried and cried until he could cry no more. He was only three years old, and all ready, true terror had entered his heart. He looked up at the window. What he saw made him scream and jerked backwards, slamming his head into the wall. On the window, blood ran down the glass, staining it forever crimson. _

_A scream tore through his lips as he felt himself begin to shake. "Daddy!" he screamed over and over, wishing, hoping his father would hear him and come and save him from the nightmare, but his father was outside, protecting him none the less. The boy, however, would rather his father be with him, not outside with all those creatures who wanted to kill him._

_Just as he was about to scream again, looking away from the window, the door busted open. The dark shadows that he had been in, that had been broken by the pale light of the full moon, was shattered as the light came on. His eyes began to sting at the sudden blast of bright light. Holding his hands to his eyes once more, he was aware of people coming towards him. "Daddy?" he whispered, but even so, he knew it wasn't his father. No, this was someone else. But at least it wasn't those creatures, those scary creatures that wanted him._

_He looked up, his eyes narrowed into slits because of the light that continued to intrude on the darkness, and making his headache all the worse. He brushed his silver hair out of his face as he caught sight of a young woman he had never seen before come towards him. His mother was dead, it couldn't have been her. And besides, he had seen a picture of her, she had had black hair, this woman had dark brown. _

_The young boy found himself being picked up by the woman. He struggled in her arms, suddenly breaking down in a hopeless hysteria, "I want my daddy!" he yelled through the noise coming from outside._

"_Shh," the woman coaxed, carrying him towards the door. "Your daddy isn't here anymore. He…left," she told him quietly._

"_Will he be back?" the boy asked, the tears coming down his face suddenly stopping. He wanted his father, but his father had left him. Why had his father left him? Why?_

_The young woman shook her head, "I'm afraid not, honey, but you're going to come live with me for now,"_

"_Wh-Why? Where did he go?" the boy wailed out as he was carried outside to a car. He started to look around, but the young woman covered his eyes, obviously not wanting him to see what was happening. He didn't want to see anyway. _

"_He went to a better place. He'll be happy there…" the woman's voice was gentle but the boy failed to miss the cold streak and misguided truth in her words. She had lied. "What's your name?" she asked him, changing the subject as they climbed into a car. _

"_Riku…My name is Riku,"

* * *

_

Please review. I hope you liked it so far. Chapter One will be up really soon. It's been a while since I've written about Riku, but he is my favorite character in KH, and so I shall try and keep updating reguarly, okay? Twice a week maybe, sometimes once. It depends on how many reviews I get at how fast I update. In fact...I think I'll finsih Chapter One tonight and update Wednesy. (It's Monday) 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

Riku could hear something far off in the distance, calling his name. There was a loud banging noise, and he cringed away from the sound. "Riku! Wake up!" the voice shouted, but he refused to listen as he drew further back into his own mind, the fear that kept growing bigger and bigger, making him feel sick, forced him back from reality, back into his dreams. He shut his eyes mentally, rolling over in his bed and jerking the blankets over his face, as if to block out the horrible noise. "Father…" he whispered, the longing he felt in his dream returning, even though he was now surrounded by darkness.

"My head…it hurts…it hurts Tifa, make it better…it hurts!" the young boy wailed in the back seat, clutching his head in pain, the tears that stained his cheeks and that has reddened his eyes returned as the head ache begin to grow worse.

_Tifa, who was driving the car, turned around, glancing back at the windshield. No other car was in sight, just the forest and moon. Nothing else. Sighing, she kept one hand on the steering wheel, glad that it was a straight road, and dug in one of her pockets. She found some ibuprofen, some of Cloud's own medicine he took for when he got a headache. "Swallow this," she told Riku, handing him the pill._

"Riku! Get your butt out of bed! Breakfast is ready and I'm not waiting any longer!" Sora shouted, still pounding on the locked door.

Riku grumbled something in his sleep, turning around in the darkness the surrounded him. He didn't know where he was, or why he was there, but something about the darkness comforted him, made him feel whole and no longer broken like he had for so long. For a moment, he considered letting the darkness in, make him whole once more, but he rejected it as Sora's loud voice cut through his conscious once more.

Finally, Riku opened his eyes, feeling rather tired despite he had slept so late. The feelings of his dreams and the images of his long-forgotten past were erased instantly, as if a light had been shone down on him, removing the shadows.

He, however, woke to a world of darkness. Riku irritably shoved the blankets off of his head and got out of bed. "I'm awake!" he yelled at the door, stopping Sora from pounding on his door once more. "I'll be out in a minute!" he snapped and began getting dressed.

Once he was fully dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt, Riku opened the door and stepped outside. Sora was waiting for him with the infamous cheesy smile on his face. Riku glared at him. "I thought you'd never get up! Come on, I'm starving!" Sora exclaimed and began racing down the stairs.

Riku rolled his eyes and headed down the stairs at a brisk pace. When he reached the bottom of the flight of steps, he turned left into a hallway, and then left again, into the kitchen. Tifa was already sitting at the table, waiting on them both. Sora sat down beside his mother and grabbed a plate that was in the center of the table, stacked up neatly. On each side of the table, was some food such as bacon and eggs.

Tifa smiled at him, and motioned for him to come sit down with them. Riku bit his lip, glancing at Cloud, who was already eating, apparently doing his best to ignore Riku. Riku had always known that the two of them had kept something from him; he saw it in their eyes. Some sort of mistrust, but Riku never dared ask them what it was.

Meanwhile, Sora looked over at his father, "Hey dad," Sora began. Cloud looked up at Sora, a questioning look in his eyes, "Can you take Riku and I to the training area and teach us some more fighting techniques?" Cloud was silent for a long moment, but then nodded, not saying anything. Riku didn't fail to notice that Cloud hadn't glanced at him once since he had entered the room.

Feeling cold rage in the pit of his stomach, Riku suddenly didn't feel so hungry anymore. When he continued to just stand around in the kitchen, looking directly at Cloud with narrowed eyes, not hearing something that Tifa had said to him. This had happened many times in the past, but this time, something seemed different. Riku couldn't place his finger on it, but Cloud seemed rather stiff and tensed at the moment. '_What are they hiding from me?'_ Riku wondered for the thousandth time in the last ten years. He was fifteen now and Sora was fourteen.

"Aren't you hungry, Riku?" Tifa asked again, looking at Riku, a shadowed look in her chocolate brown eyes.

Riku snapped out of his thoughts and shook his head, "No, not really," he replied. "I'm-I'm not hungry," he stammered and then spun around and headed outside. As he shut the door behind him, he sighed heavily, heading down towards the training area. They lived in Radiant Garden and Leon and Cloud usually trained down there, but now Cloud had begun brining Riku and Sora along and teaching them some things.

When he reached the training area, which was a little ways past the Bailey, Riku looked around. It was deserted. His eyes, however, fell on a sword stabbed in the ground. It was about seven feet long and shone in the sunlight that spilled down on it. A mischievous grin appeared on his face as he took another quick look around. There was no one watching. Swiftly, Riku moved towards the sword. Within seconds, he had wrapped his fingers around its hilt and jerked it out of the hard-packed ground of Radiant garden.

Looking at the gleaming sword, he gave it an experimental test swing. It cut silently through the air, barley a shimmer. _'Whoa, whoever left this sword here, is gonna miss it!'_ Riku thought, the grin on his face never vanishing. Maybe he could try practicing with this…

Riku glanced around, knowing that this place was too obvious to be seen at. The sword wasn't his, and he wasn't supposed to take it, but he shrugged the thought off. He knew a place that no one would think to look for him at. Running down a path, he headed for the Dark Depths, that was rather far from the town its self. The sword that he still held single-handedly was rather light and easy to run with, whipped through the air as he ran.

Within moments, Riku found himself standing in Dark Depths, which was deserted as well. Grinning to himself, he gripped the sword firmly in his fingers and gave it a harsh swing. It gave a quiet slashing sword as it ripped through the air. Riku began practicing what Cloud had taught him on the few occasions where they went down to the training area.

"What are you doing?" a voice said from behind him.

--

Cloud sighed, looking at his son, and then at his wife. They were both staring at him. "What?" he asked, trying to act as if he didn't know what was wrong, but in truth, he did. Sora was just staring at him curiously, while Tifa's eyes were hard with anger.

The young woman glared at him and spoke, "I thought we talked about this, Cloud," she said, her tone icy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sora open his mouth to ask what, but Tifa quickly said before Cloud could get a word out of his mouth, "Sora, go outside, Cloud and I have to talk, all right?"

Sora nodded mutely, and headed towards the door. Now Cloud turned back to Tifa, "What do you mean? What did I do this time?" he demanded. Tifa continued to glare at him.

"You're treating him as if he's outside of the family. You didn't even so much as look at him this morning!" Tifa snapped.

"Yeah, but Riku's not part of this family. He's _his_ child, Tifa," Cloud countered bluntly, his blue eyes narrowing.

"And so you should isolate him from our family? I thought we agreed the day we rescued him from that house that we'd take care of him! I don't care what _he_ said to you at the moment, I don't give a damn about any of it! You're not treating that boy right, Cloud and you know it!" Tifa growled, her fingers clenched into fists.

Cloud sighed, "It doesn't matter anyway. He said he's coming to get his son back, remember? That's what he said last night while Sora and Riku were asleep. Riku's not going to be here much longer," Cloud looked Tifa in the eyes, his Mako blue ones narrowed suddenly.

"I know…and that's why you have to treat him right, Cloud. You haven't ever done it, so why not try to at least now? While he's still here? And besides, why should we make him go, hm? His father's not very responsible to have just left him in that house, now is he?"

"I know that…" Cloud sighed, "All right fine, he'll stay,"

--

Riku spun around to see Sora standing there. "What are you doing here?" Riku asked, his blue eyes narrowing.

"Looking for you. Whose sword is that?" Sora asked him. Riku shrugged. "Did ya find it laying around or something?"

Riku nodded, "Yeah, what's it to you?" he wasn't in the best of moods.

"Well, I was going to say you should probably put it back where you found it, but whatever…" Sora replied, turning around. "I think that's Dad's new sword or something,"

Riku stared at the blade, and then thought about how angry Cloud would be to find it missing. "All right, fine, we'll go put it back," Riku said and then started back up the path from which he had come.


End file.
